Welcome to our 24th #womanoftheweek! Today, we will be discussing Grace Meng, a Politician! Enjoy!
Grace Meng is an American politician and lawyer, breaking boundaries as a woman of color. Having held the title of Assemblymember and Congresswomen, both representing Queens, New York City, this is not the beginning of her career, nor is it the end.
Meng was born on October 1st, 1975 in Queens, New York to Jimmy Meng and Shiao-Mei Meng. She is of Taiwanese descent and was raised in the Flushing and Bayside sections of Queens. She attended Stuyvesant High in New York City, received her Bachelor’s at The University of Michigan in 1997, and her Juris Doctor at Yeshiva University in 2002. In other words, she lived a middle class childhood with two immigrant parents and reflects these sentiments in her political career.(Grace Meng)
Grace Meng’s career spans from the legal field to the political field. As for the legal field, Meng was an attorney who engaged in pro bono work for Sanctuary for Families and was a partner for Yoon and Kim, Limited Liability Partnership. As for the political field, Meng was elected on her second attempt at New York State Assembly in 2008, running as a Democrat; she was later reelected in 2010. Meng’s ambition went further in 2012, when she was elected to the House of Representatives, representing New York’s 6th congressional district(Queens); she has been representing since. Along with this, Meng was vice chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2017-2021. She served on multiple committees such as the “Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies” and the” Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs.” Meng is also a member of multiple caucuses such as the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Medicare for All Caucus, and the Blue Collar Caucus(Grace Meng).
Through being Assembly and Congresswoman, Meng has tremendously impacted the lives of New Yorkers. During her tenure as an Assemblymember, she aided senior citizens in getting some property tax exemption by authoring 2009’s “Reverse Mortgage Act.”. During Congressional tenure in 2014, Meng proposed to amend the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 by including more forms of violations to religious freedom and by including the desecration of cemeteries as one of them(H.R. 4028; 113th Congress). In 2019, Meng reintroduced the Community College Student Success Act, motivated to increase graduation rates at under-resourced public community colleges by providing more funding/materials; this doubled graduation rates. As of 2021, Meng introduced House Resolution 151, which condemned “... all forms of anti-Asian sentiment as related to COVID-19," and urged for harassment to be reported. Grace Meng, a mother and civil servant has dedicated decades of her life to furthering her city, and the legacy she has built and remains to build with each bill will not go unnoticed
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